Catchy title eh?
Ok, let’s get one thing straight, right now. I love sweets. Like I REALLY love them. Making desserts is pretty much my favorite thing to do. It’s hard coming up with paleo desserts. My desserts often fail. I still eat them. I waste nothing. Making desserts for people just makes me so happy. I stare at them to watch their reaction to see if they like it. If I don’t get the response I want, I hate them. And our friendship ends. Thankfully I still have a few friends left.
But this dessert is something unreal. LIKESERIOUSLYOMGUNREAL. Laura stared at me with “Holy Balls” eyes when she tried this dessert. She said it definitely was a 10 and couldn’t believe how much it tasted like cheesecake. I.Was.Pumped. I want to make a kitty pool out of this dessert and live in it. Then make out with it. I honestly may make it every week. Sh*t could get ugly. Not literally. This will make your bum much happier than real cheesecake.
Anywho. Guess what I did the other day!? Went to a sporting event!!! NBD. Yeah, you want to see me out of my comfort zone? Place me at a baseball with thousands of screaming drunk people. I’m awkward there. If you follow me on instagram @paleomg, you could probably tell I was out of my element since 3 or the 5 pictures included alcohol. I drank ALMOST a full glass of a Strongbow, 3 sips…wait wait…4 sips of a Blue Moon, and I ate a blackberry out of a purple margarita, I think it had some alcohol in it. I just got wild!! But here is the kicker, I ACTUALLY had fun. I was with Laura so that’s a given that I would at least smile throughout the game, but I truly enjoyed the full 4 minutes of the game that I watched.
I can’t talk anymore. I need to eat my cheesecake. I’m not even joking.
No Bake Caramel Cheesecake (minus cheese)
Ingredients
For the crust
- 1 cup almond butter
- 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 2/3 cup walnuts
- 1 heaping tablespoon coconut butter or homemade coconut butter
- 1 heaping tablespoon raw honey
- pinch of salt
For the filling
- 1.5 cups roasted, unsalted cashews
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 1/2 cup raw honey
- 2–3 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2–4 tablespoon canned coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the caramel
- 12–14 medjool dates, pitted and soaked in water for an hour
- 5–6 tablespoons canned coconut milk
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- salt to top it all off with
Instructions
- Place dates in a bowl of water to soak.
- Let’s first make the crust!! Add walnuts to your food processor and blend until you get a meal, almost a walnut butter. Then add the rest of your crust ingredients and blend until well combined.
- Add crust mixture to an 8×8 glass baking dish lined with saran wrap, press down until evenly distributed. I sound so professional right now.
- Wipe out the inside of your food processor, no need to scrub, then add your cashews and blend until you begin to get a clumpy mess.
- Then add your coconut oil, lemon juice, vanilla extract and honey and puree until well combined.
- And lastly, add your coconut milk, 1 tablespoon at a time to break down the cashews completely. I used about 3 tablespoons for mine until the cashews became this soupy paste.
- Pour your filling onto the crust and use a knife or spoon to spread mixture throughout the entire pan, covering the crust, then place in the freezer for about 1-2 hours or until completely hard.
- Once your dates have soaked for about an hour, remove them from the water, and add them to a food processor and pulse until dates have broken down (less than a minute).
- Then add your coconut milk tablespoon by tablespoon to the dates while the food processor is still running. Then add your water as well.
- And add your vanilla extract and pinch of salt.
- Process until you get a caramel. Just let it run for a while. Pick your nose. Look at a trash magazine and BOOM. Caramel. May take 3-5 minutes, tops.
- Spread caramel over hardened cheesecake filling.
- Top with some course salt.
- Place it freezer for about 30 minutes until everything has set.
- Cut bars into the sizes you want. The saran wrap will help you pull them out without destroying their gorgeous looks. Just pull on the side of the saran wrap and it will pop right out.
- Eat. Eat and remember how wonderful it is to be paleo.
- PALEO IS AWESOME!
Notes
I am not saying how many it served. Sergio had once piece. Laura and I had the rest….oops. Whatever. Life is good.
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More Bar Ideas For Ya:
Chocolate “Peanut Butter” Cookie Bars
No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cream Bars
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Personally, I think these are best eaten once they’re completely frozen. I ate one the day I made them, after everything firmed up, and it was good, but almost a little too much for me. I left them in the freezer overnight and when I ate one (and another and another!) the next day, I just about died! So, so good! Next time, I’m going to try macadamia nuts for the filling instead of cashews.
THESE. WERE. EPIC.
Holy Cow these are so good!! I am not a big cheesecake person in general, and I do not know why I doubted that these would be amazing…but as usual they are! I share with my trainer at the gym so that totally makes them OK…that’s what I am going with anyway…I have made a recipe a day from your blog, every single one is aaaammmaaazing! After losing a 100#’s it’s hard to keep food interesting…thank you for that!!
I’m pretty sure I said OH.EM.GEE. about 5 times while eating these. And while tasting the batter. And licking the spoon.
Definitely share-worthy and make-again worthy! Thanks Juli!
Juli,
I am in love with your blog! This recipe looks fantastic; I like how you used dates instead of unhealthy refined sugars. I also make “cheesecakes” with cashews – I recently made a lemon blueberry cheesecake using an almond-pecan flour crust with cinnamon. They are so good!
I love the personality you put into your blog, it really makes it enjoyable to read. Keep it up!
Vanessa
Made these this afternoon–made a couple changes thanks to an under-stocked kitchen but I doubt they made too much of a difference–AND OH MY EFFING GAWD. Thank you so much and keep up the good work!!
Is there anything I can sub for the coconut cream concentrate/butter? I have the flakes to make it, but hate to for just 1T. If there aren’t any substitutes for it, how long will it keep if I make it fresh at home? Thanks! Making these for my hubby for Fathers’ Day!
One more question! Do I store these in the freezer or in the fridge? (If there are leftovers 🙂 Thanks!
I stored mine in the fridge
Thank you! We ate them plain the first night, and then the next night, I mixed together some Enjoy Life chocolate chips and coconut milk (from your turtle cake recipe) and poured that over top. Both ways were delicious, felt like I was eating something from the Cheesecake Factory!! Thanks for another great recipe!
Soooo making these.. RIGHT NOW! Waiting for the filling to freeze and set so I can add the caramel topping. Such a great dessert to make for my sister in law. She is working on losing a little weight post-baby. Yummmmm…
😀
These are amazing! We made them last night. I’ve been storing them in the freezer, works great. We made our filling with raw cashews instead of roasted, because we already had raw ones, and it was delicious. This seems like a fun recipe to play with, adding fruit to the filling, or maybe doing a cocoa topping instead of dates. Thanks for the recipe.